A Girl is a Body of Water Read online

  “Why can’t we play at our usual place?”

  “You don’t like my house: are you jealous?”

  Giibwa did not reply.

  •

  Their playhouse was a space under a canopy of three young trees. The girls started by sweeping out the dry leaves. Then they tied the flowers they had picked on to the tree trunks, spread a sackcloth on the floor, and laid down their babies to sleep. Kirabo had made her baby out of banana fibre, while Giibwa had moulded hers out of mud. Kirabo also laid out her white plastic doll, although she rarely played with it. She was outside peeling “food” when Giibwa gasped, “Kirabo, Kirabo, my cores have come.” Kirabo placed the matooke in a Blue Band tin on the fire and hurried “inside” to Giibwa.

  Giibwa had been attempting to nurse her clay baby when she made the discovery. She pulled down the neckline of her dress, but because of the buttons at the back, it came down only a fraction. As she tried to lay the baby back on the sackcloth, its head rolled off. Giibwa put the rest of her baby down and poured water in the dust to make mud, which she used to reinforce the baby’s neck and reattach the head. She laid her baby out for the neck to heal. Then she turned around and asked Kirabo to undo the buttons at the back of her dress. She pulled it down and revealed a paler chest. Both Giibwa’s breasts pouted. She felt the areola of her right breast. “This one.” She shoved it at Kirabo. “Feel it.”

  Kirabo pinched and felt a lump the size of a lozenge. She gasped. “It is real.” Then she felt the one on the left. “This one is lagging behind: it is a pea.”

  “First, the one on the right comes”—Giibwa had the impatience of a breast specialist—“and then the one on the left.”

  Kirabo pulled down her own neckline and pinched her areolas, from one to another. Wa, just empty skin which gathered as she pinched but on release spread flat across her chest. She was reaching to feel Giibwa’s miracle again when Giibwa snapped her chest out of reach.

  “Don’t.”

  “Eh?”

  “Young breasts are shy: they could go back.”

  Kirabo was alarmed.

  “If you tamper with them, touch-touching, when they have just arrived, they disappear.” But her face said You have a house, I have breasts; who is happier?

  “Okay.” Kirabo swallowed the snub. “Squeeze them yourself; squeeze and see if there is milk.”

  Giibwa pressed the areola hard. A tear peered from the teat and Kirabo shrieked, “Maama!” and held both cheeks in frozen awe. Giibwa sighed and stretched out her legs like a grown-up preparing to breastfeed. Kirabo sat back, dejected. To lift her spirits, she took her banana-fibre doll and tried to nurse it, but without a face the doll was not appealing to nurse. Giibwa lifted her baby to breastfeed. The neck had not healed and the head rolled off again.

  Kirabo laughed. “Someone’s baby has lost its head.”

  “At least it has a face, but someone’s—you cannot tell the face from the back of the head.”

  “At least I have a proper doll.”

  Kirabo lifted her plastic doll, a present from Aunt Abi who lived in the city. The doll rolled its eyes up-down, up-down like a bulb flickering. When she turned it, a cry emanated from the back, under a lid labelled MADE IN CHINA. Kirabo caressed the long yellow hair.

  “Put it on your breast then,” Giibwa challenged. “Why don’t you ever nurse it if it is your child?”

  Kirabo rose to the challenge. She pulled down the top of her dress and put the doll on an indifferent nipple. The contrast between the white doll and Kirabo’s black chest was so stark Giibwa burst out laughing. She hooted, pointing, unable to speak, until she paused to catch her breath. “That charcoally breast feeding that Zungu baby. Talk about baby snatchers.” She convulsed again.

  For a moment, Kirabo could not find words. Giibwa snubbing her house was one thing, the arrival of Giibwa’s cores before hers was another, but this “charcoally” jibe was more than Kirabo could take in a day. She grabbed Giibwa’s baby and flung the torso outside. It shattered and the pieces scattered across the ground.

  Giibwa stared at her, stunned. Then she screamed, “You evil goat!” and grabbed Kirabo’s Zungu doll. She skipped outside with it. There, she plucked off a chubby hand and threw it on the ground. Kirabo ran out and chased after her. Off came the second hand, and Kirabo stopped to pick up the doll’s limbs.

  Kirabo gave chase again. “If I catch you—”

  “What will you do, Charcoally? Oh-oh, there goes a leg.”

  Kirabo picked up a clod and hurled it at Giibwa. Giibwa, knowing Kirabo would not dare hit her with a clod, made a show of dodging it.

  “Don’t ever come back to play with me, cow-udder.”

  Giibwa laughed. She did not mind being cow-udder light-skinned. And that was the problem. While Giibwa had an arsenal of names emanating from Kirabo’s apparent physical defects, Kirabo had none. Giibwa went for Kirabo’s eyes.

  “Panda eyes has no breasts, so she tells lies—I have a house. My grandfather gave me land.” She tossed her tail this way and that.

  “It is my house; my grandfather gave it to me.”

  “Women do not own land, jacana legs.”

  “In my family we do.”

  “That is because you stole us.”

  “Stole you?” This was a new insult.

  “You Baganda raided us and brought us here from our homes. My mother says you stole women and property. You stole women to improve your looks. Everywhere you went, devastation.”

  “What are you bleating about, stinky goat?” Kirabo was confused. Apart from her mother, Giibwa was Ganda too.

  “Now you are rich from selling us, you show off. My mother says Ganda women were so ugly your men turned to abducting women from other tribes.”

  “All your mother knows is rolling dung. Who buys humans? Firstly, did your mother go to school? No. So, she does not know what she is talking about. Secondly, you stink of dung: Who would buy a stinker? You are just dumb because you don’t go to school.”

  Giibwa lost confidence in the abduction jibe. Not going to school was her sore point. She revisited Kirabo’s dark skin.

  “Kagongolo, your skin is so scorched, you will bite both the upper and lower lip to bleach it with that Ambi cream.” Giibwa sucked both her lower and upper lip between her teeth and pretended to scour her face with effort.

  This time, Kirabo ran after her resolutely. Giibwa was not lissom where Kirabo was wind. Giibwa kept glancing over her shoulders. As Kirabo caught up, Giibwa threw the torso of the doll at her and Kirabo stopped to pick it up.

  At a safe distance, Giibwa taunted, “All your aunts are sluts.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That is why your grandfather gives you property.”

  “WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

  “Guy, public bus; your aunt Gayi, village coach. Fancy a ride?”

  Kirabo stopped chasing and pulled out her trump card. “You know what, Giibwa? It is time my grandfather had a word with your father. You have gone beyond.”

  Giibwa’s face collapsed. The consequences were dire. She turned and ran out of sight. Kirabo did not chase her. When she returned to their “house,” smoke was everywhere. The matooke and mushrooms, which had been cooking, were burning. Fire had travelled to their “house.” The sackcloth and all of their playthings on the floor were on fire. Kirabo knew she could call Giibwa back, could forget their fight and ask her friend to help her put out the flames, but she did not. Giibwa had gone too far this time. Instead, she broke leafy branches off the trees and beat the fire on the ground until it died. Everything in their “house” was lost.

  6

  Nsuuta sat against the wall batting her ointment-covered eyelids. She stared through the doorway into the road as if watching the world go up and down. It was still morning, five hours of day. And because the heat had not yet escalated, a sweetness in nature persisted. Kirabo was a few metres away from the door when Nsuuta called, “On whom do I see?”

  “On me.
”

  “Ah, Kirabo. Come in, come in.”

  Kirabo stepped in, trying to control her excitement. Even though Grandmother had travelled, Kirabo made sure to sit a little distance away from the doorway. Widow Diba might see her. Diba was that kind of resident who, if you saw her coming while you peed by the roadside, you sat down in your pee and smiled.

  “Grandmother has gone to Timiina.”

  “To see her relations?”

  “She left this morning.”

  “Wonderful. It is good for a woman to take a break from marriage and mothering. Let her clan pamper her. She will come back refreshed.”

  Kirabo frowned. Was Nsuuta being old, or just being a hypocrite? Old people say pleasant things for the sake of it. Every time Widow Diba came around, Grandmother said Happy to see you, but under her breath she groaned She has come. Kirabo searched Nsuuta’s face, but there was no trace of sarcasm.

  “How is your grandfather?”

  “He is there like that. You have news for me?”

  “Oh, she is impatient,” Nsuuta clapped. “She has not even asked how I have been.”

  Kirabo greeted Nsuuta, wondering why a witch would care about good manners.

  “I have considered the matters you brought to me.” Nsuuta batted her eyes as if the ointment stung. “But I will only tell you more on condition you will not tell anyone.”

  “Not a word; in God’s truth.”

  “Well then, firstly, look no further: I found your mother.”

  “You did?” Kirabo’s eyes almost popped out.

  “She is alive.”

  Kirabo clapped and held her mouth.

  “She finished studying at Kyambogo Technical College and got married.”

  There was silence. Kirabo was not interested in her mother’s intellectual or marital life: Where was she, when would she see her?

  Nsuuta must have read her mind, for she continued, “But she cannot see you yet.”

  A knife ripped through Kirabo’s chest.

  “It is not safe for her to see you.”

  “Not safe?”

  “She has not told her husband about you.”

  “About me?” Kirabo did not understand why she could be a secret.

  “She was very young when she had you. And you know what the world is like to girls who get pregnant in school.”

  Kirabo did not speak.

  “But I saw her heart crying.” Nsuuta held both Kirabo’s shoulders. She was so close Kirabo could see an outer ring, whitish, around Nsuuta’s faded irises. “As soon as you can see her, my powers will let me know. But you must promise to be patient.”

  Kirabo blinked rapidly, her long lashes exaggerating the act. All the anticipation about seeing her mother, the first words she would say to her, the way she would hold her, the beautiful things her mother would say, the mountains and mountains of gifts her mother would give her.

  “When will it be safe?”

  “I will keep checking.”

  “Can you not make her sneak to see me? I will never tell; will not even call her ‘Mother.’ Once I clap my eyes on her, ba ppa, I am done. Never to contact her again.”

  “I don’t make people do things. Only evil witches do that.”

  Anger started to harden Kirabo’s forehead. A witch was a witch, no such thing as a good one.

  “Don’t worry, you will see her. If you promise to wait until her marriage is gulu-gulu strong, I will take you to her. You don’t want to destroy her life, do you?”

  Kirabo did not shake her head. A marriage built on deception was already dead. The reverend said so in church.

  “Keep coming to check on me so I can tell you the latest news about her. Now, the other problem—”

  “What is her name?”

  “Whose name?”

  “My mother’s.”

  “The name did not come to me.” Nsuuta wiped her lips. “The other problem was flying, yes?”

  When the tears reached her eyes, Kirabo ground her teeth. You cry for the living, you give death permission. The tears remained there, not spilling, not going back.

  “There are two of you and one flies out, yes?”

  “Hmm.”

  “Then be happy.” Nsuuta shook Kirabo’s shoulders as if to loosen her pain. “Look at me, Kirabo. You are not a witch. You are just special, eh?”

  “Grandfather says I am special.” But it came out as a wail.

  “He has discernment, that man, but I don’t think he sees the whole picture. Listen.” Nsuuta leaned forward. “You fly out of your body because our original state is in you.” She poked Kirabo in a Lucky you way.

  “Our original state?”

  “Yes, the way women were in the beginning.”

  “We were not like this?”

  “Of course not.” Nsuuta was indignant, as if this current state were contemptible. “We changed when the original state was bred out of us.”

  Kirabo looked at her hands as if to see the change. “Was it bad what we were? Is it what makes me do bad things?”

  “No, it was not bad at all. In fact, it was wonderful for us. We were not squeezed inside, we were huge, strong, bold, loud, proud, brave, independent. But it was too much for the world and they got rid of it. However, occasionally that state is reborn in a girl like you. But in all cases it is suppressed. In your case the first woman flies out of your body because it does not relate to the way this society is.”

  “Oh.” Kirabo thought for a moment. “Does my mother know about it?”

  Nsuuta was confused.

  “I mean, is it the reason my mother does not want me?”

  “Who told you your mother does not want you?” There was panic in Nsuuta’s face.

  Kirabo scratched her ear.

  “Has anyone ever told you that?”

  “No.”

  “This has nothing to do with your mother. Your mother does not know anything about it. I am the only one who does, unless you have told someone else.”

  “No! But how do we get rid of it?”

  “Get rid of it? Child, it is a gift. Let it grow, let us see what we were like, what we are capable of.”

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “I am a witch.”

  “Does it mean I am possessed?”

  “No. Nothing like that. It is here.” Nsuuta put her hand on Kirabo’s heart. “It is our story.”

  “Our story?”

  “It is an untold story.”

  “Untold?” Her eyes lit up.

  “It got buried a long time ago until it was forgotten.”

  “But you know it?”

  “I dug it up.”

  In Kirabo’s experience, there was nothing like telling a story no one else knew. It guaranteed you the undivided attention of the audience, no one questioning the “facts,” no judgement of how you told it, no one smirking like they had told it better.

  “Then how was it bred out?”

  “In a lot of ways.” Nsuuta stood up, arms last. “Let me go outside for a moment. There is no catching a breath with you, is there?”

  Kirabo watched Nsuuta step outside towards her kitchen and wondered whether “There is no catching a breath with you” was a rebuke. She decided she was reading too much into it.

  While she waited for Nsuuta to return, Kirabo skipped through Nsuuta’s back corridor to find the latrine. At the back door she was arrested by the sight of a tiny grave. It lay at the edge of the back yard, in the middle of a flower garden like a shrine. Kirabo’s pee stopped pressing and she ran back to the diiro.

  Nsuuta came back with two glasses of water on a wooden tray. Kirabo drank hers at once. She gave Nsuuta a moment to finish hers. After a polite interval, she prompted, “You were saying how our original state was bred out?”

  “Maybe you should come back another day—”

  “That is fine, but why was it bred out?”

  Nsuuta sighed. “It had been perverted, made ugly.”

  “That is frightening; I do
not want it.”

  “Probably it chose you because you are strong.”

  Kirabo stopped. The idea that the original state had trusted her was confounding. Then her frustration exploded. “Was it Adam who persecuted Eve? Was it Kintu doing it to Nnambi?”

  “Kintu ne Nnambi, Adam and Eve, Mundu and Sera, they are the same people. Every tribe gave them different names. And no, it was not them. This was a state of being.”

  “And you will tell the story to me?”

  “On condition you will not get rid of our original state until you know all the facts.”

  “All right, I will keep it. But tell me some.”

  “I am tired.”

  “Just a little, to help me decide whether I want to hear the rest of it.”

  Nsuuta shook her head the way grown-ups surrender to a manipulative child. “How does one start the story of our original state?”

  “From the beginning.”

  Nsuuta reached for Kirabo’s hand and entwined it with hers. “In the beginning—”

  “Kin, you were our eyes.” For Kirabo, storytelling etiquette had to be observed.

  “—humans were mere residents of the earth. We did not own it, we did not rule it; we shared it equally with plants, insects, birds, and animals. But then one day, our ancients realised they could be more—they could own the earth and reign over it. Do you know what they did?”

  “No.”

  “They made up stories.”

  “Stories?” Kirabo had imagined war.

  “Yes, stories that justified our dominion. First, they came up with Kintu and made him the first human on earth. And what does being the first mean?”

  “Winner and leader. Oh, and owner.”

  “Exactly. The first son is heir. The firstborn has power. Even the first wife wields power. Here in Buganda we created Kintu, who married Nnambi, and they brought all plants and creatures to earth from heaven. Europeans created Adam and Eve, then claimed that their god created everything and then gave them the earth to name, and to rule. There are similar stories around the world that justify human dominion. Through these stories humans gave themselves so much power they could destroy the world if they wished.”